Report From The Road: Boarding School, Youth Ministry & Social Media
Posted by anastasia on 10-17-2008
Last Friday I was invited to speak at an all-boys boarding school in Connecticut about the teens and technology (the content of Totally Wired). I spent my early years (ages 1-6) growing up in Connecticut and both my parents have degrees from UCONN – the colorful fall leaves and New England style homes dotting the road leading to the school all felt very familiar. I spoke to faculty first, then to parents visiting their sons the following day. The Harry Potter/Dead Poets-esque campus reminded me of why I begged my parents to send me to boarding school as a teenager. I think I even sent away for brochures and was rooting for Interlochen Arts Academy since I saw myself as a burgeoning “triple threat” back then.
One insight I had after my visit was that it’s not just public schools where social media is blocked and teachers are saddled with requirements and teaching to the test that are struggling to integrate technology into education in meaningful ways. Elite independent schools that pride themselves in being academically rigorous may be so focused on teaching the traditional canon in traditional ways that they, too, risk becoming part of the widening gap between students and teachers.
The other big concern I heard from both faculty and parents was around media multi-tasking or “continuous partial attention” and students not being able to concentrate. One faculty member volunteered that for this generation, it’s actually comforting or familiar to have at least some multiple media happening while doing homework. That said, the school appeared to put strict limits on this during study time since a parent later told me how much faster her son completed his homework without being able to also IMi, play games, etc. while studying at the same time. Parents were also concerned about Facebook loopholes and how employers or college admissions types could find inappropriate content posted on Facebook profiles. In many ways at a boarding school, the faculty are more like parents, at least when a child is living there, and I sensed that they were pretty hands-on in terms of monitoring what their students were posting on social networking sites.
After returning home from Connecticut, I drove to Sacramento to speak at a convention of youth workers (youth ministry) organized by Youth Specialties. It was huge – 2500 attendees, massive trade show floor full of organizations that looked like they could have been on the Warped Tour (and probably are). After my talk, the Q&A evolved into a really interesting discussion about whether friending the young people in these ministries was appropriate. This is obviously becoming a big issue for adults working with youth (as well as for parents) – to friend or not to friend? I usually encourage educators or in this case youth ministers to create an organizational profile to friend with vs. your own personal profile and be clear up front about whether you’re going to look at teens’ profiles and potentially act on inappropriate posts. The ministers in the room obviously have a big investment in the moral character of the youth they work with so whether to friend wasn’t as much of an issue for most of them – it was more about how to intervene when they saw something they didn’t like.
Anyhow, just sort of a field report from “the real world” where adults, teens and social media are colliding every day.
Categorized under: Totally Wired